Cardiologist Gregory Thomas was visiting Cairo’s Egyptian Museum in 2008 when he happened to notice a nameplate for the mummy of Pharaoh Merenptah. It said the ruler of Egypt some 3,200 years ago had atherosclerosis, arthritis and dental decay when he died.
“I didn’t believe it,” says Thomas, who is also an imaging specialist at University of California, Irvine. “I wanted to know whether it was accurate and if it was, how often did people have it.”
Thomas ended up serving as principal investigation for a study confirming evidence of hardening of the arteries in nine mummies dating back as far as 3,500 years. For details, here’s the WSJ story on the research that was presented today at the American Heart Association scientific meeting in Orlando, Fla., and also is being published in JAMA.
Heart disease is often linked to trends in modern life, including urbanization, fast-food diets, smoking and sedentary lifestyles characteristic of Western societies. But the findings suggest “we have to look beyond risk factors to explain why atherosclerosis occurs and why it progresses,” Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, Mo., and another researcher on the project told the WSJ.
“This disease is as old as the pyramids,” he says.
Photo of mummy of Djeher: Dr. Michael Miyamoto